Saturday, March 25, 2017

Let's hear it for rage-quitting!

Is anyone else confused by the President's reaction to the way no Democrats got behind his ill-conceived plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act? Like, most of us, a majority of Americans, would prefer not to die on the emergency room floor because they can't afford premiums. Right?

"Look, we're just trying to make the people's livesmore difficult by forcing an unpopular bill down everyones throat that will make health insuranceunaffordable for millions of Americans. I mean, what's everyone's problem?"

-Speaker Paul Ryan, summing

up the Republican dilemma

"Um, it's a terrible bill and we hate you?"

-House Democrats responding to

the President's bewilderment

The President gave a press conference from Hillary Clinton's desk in the Oval Office saying:"It was very very close, it was a tight margin, we had no Democrat support, we had no votes from the Democrats. They weren't going to give us a single vote, so it's a very difficult thing to do."

So first of all, a tight margin implies a close vote, but they didn't even bring the bill up for one. It's what those of us who play video games call a rage-quit. Since you probably have a life, allow me to nerd'splain. Say you're playing an online game like Mario Kart or something. You're in first place, but you can see the blue turtle shell coming up behind you. You know you're doomed, but rather than lose gracefully, you quit out of the game or shut the console off. Rage-quitting is taking the coward's way out and the GOP just rage-quit on healthcare.

Above: Some idiot, in for some
serious petard hoisting...

So we should all be celebrating, right? I mean, for once this pouty, hate-filled goon of a man who won the United States Presidential election despite being grossly under-qualified, inarticulate, unlikeable and pulling in 3 million fewer votes than his opponent, got beat. He lost and who doesn't love to see people like him get their comeuppance? Their just deserts? To see them hoisted by their own petard? Normally no one, but we're also talking about President Trump, so I feel like we're in for some petulance and petty revenge.

Pictured: Obamacare, apparently.

"I've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode, it is exploding right now, it's uh, many states have big problems, almost all states have big problems...so Obamacare is exploding with no Democrat support...

-Donald Trump, taking a big

prophetic schadenfreude

all over the Oval Office

Oh shit, what if it was going
to be ice cream? We blew it...

Sigh. So I'm not sure people who understand these things all agree that Obamacare is exploding, but Trump seems to think it is and his response to the more reasonable elements of Congress not agreeing with him on how to fix it is to let the world burn. And then he went on to tell us about how really great the bill was going to be if we all got behind 'phase one.' Sort of like how people tell their kids that they were going to get a surprise, but because they're weren't good, they're not going to get it now, but it was going to be awesome.

Trump's bill is now up there with The Owls of Ga'hoole 2 on the list of things
we'll never get to see. I hope you're happy.

"A lot of people don't realize how good our bill was because they were viewing phase one, but when you add phase two, which is mostly designings [sic] of Secretary Price...and when you add phase three which I think we would have gotten, it became a great bill."

So like, if phase three was so great, why didn't they just lead with that? Unless...hey, you don't suppose the bill was all terrible and that he's just making shit up now so we'll feel bad that it's not going to pass, do you?

"In phase four, everyone was going to get injected with nano-bots that will repair yourcells so you can live forever. It was going to be really, really, uh good. A good bill. But now,Obamacare is exploding and everyone's going to die someday. Because of Democrats."